The Oxford Dictionaries has chosen "selfie" as its word of the year for 2013. Selfie is defined as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media." Our question is, in this year -- and the upcoming ones of this decade -- do we need to be more selfie or more selfless? Given the current trends and problems domestically and internationally, it seems to us that "selfless" should be the clear winner. Selfie was … [Read more...]
Articles
Frank blogs regularly for the Huffington Post and writes occasional columns and articles for publications such as the International Business Times and The Economic Times of India.
Frank writes on a wide variety of topics that are critical to shaping the future of America and the American dream and to making the United States and the world a better place. These include: Business; education; poverty and inequality; politics and public policy; immigration; manufacturing; innovation; leadership; citizenship; and social commentary.
Frank’s most recent blogs are highlighted on this page. To read other blogs or articles by Frank, click on the categories or publications links on the left.
Thanksgiving Thoughts on Our Immigrant Nation
We closed our Thanksgiving blog last year with lyrics from a song "The House That I Live In," recorded by Frank Sinatra to encourage unity and tolerance during World War II, and the following comments: America, the house we live in is a more diverse one, that it was at the outset of World War II and we believe a better one for it. The family in Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving dining room painting was all white. Today that family could also be African-American, Latino, Indian American, … [Read more...]
Ask Not! JFK’s Legacy Denied. Ask Why Not! JFK’S Legacy Defended.
In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy famously said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Today, the tea party faithful and a group of conservative elected officials just say, Ask not! Ask not what can be done for or by the government. This type of negativity would be bothersome at any time. It is especially so in this year and week of remembering President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 22, … [Read more...]
Lack of Movement on Immigration Reform Helps Indian IT Industry
The Indian information technology industry, steadfastly opposed to an immigration reform bill passed by the US Senate this past June, maybe finally getting its wish. It appears increasingly unlikely that the House of Representatives will vote on the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, before the end of the year. The bill-known as the "Gang of Eight bill," referring to a bipartisan group of senators that drafted the bill-proposes to provide … [Read more...]
140 Characters: Not Much There!
Twitter's IPO offering on its first day opened at $26 a share and after a trading frenzy closed at $44.90 a share - 73 percent above the IPO price for an initial valuation of $31.7 billion. The stock closed at $41.65 - down about 5%. This initial activity is testimony that in today's world: Opinions matter more than facts. Making noise matters more than making things. Financial markets matter more than business models. In a strange way, it also illustrates that being disconnected is more … [Read more...]
Good Government: Time for More Credit and Less Blame
The governmental shutdown had a number of unexpected consequences. One of the more important, in our opinion, is that it elevated the visibility and importance of what the government does or does not do in the mind of the American public. It also demonstrated that while the government may not be the solution to all of our problems, it is not always the problem that some would have us believe. Indeed, as evidenced by the reactions and responses to the shutdown, in many ways and in many areas … [Read more...]
US shutdown: Lessons, winners and losers
WASHINGTON, DC: The American political system and the electorate are famously known for punishing candidates and parties that toy with country's larger interests. Everyone involved with the two-week long US government shutdown was aware of that, which is why the House Republicans blinked first, avoiding a calamitous default whose ripples would have been felt globally. Nonetheless, before finally giving up at the 11th hour, they tested the nerve of the nation and the patience of the investors. … [Read more...]
Braking Bad: The Critical Need to End Congressional Gridlock
It's been more than a week now since Congress put on the brakes and officially ended the bad being done by the shutdown. Unfortunately, the bad lingers on and the worst may be ahead. That's because the shutdown was a symbolic manifestation of a much bigger ongoing problem that has had and will have significant economic, psychological and behavioral consequences. During the shutdown, Rana Foroohar wrote an article for Time titled, "Congress is Bad for the Economy." How "bad" is it? Let's … [Read more...]
Education: All in the Family
This is the final in a series of four blogs that we have posted during Connected Educator Month. In our first blog, titled "Education: Making the Connections," we introduced the concept of a triangle with the student at the center and with the family at the top and the school and the community at either tip. We see the tips of the triangle as the pivotal points at which we need to make the proper connections in order to improve the quality of education. In our next two blogs, we focused … [Read more...]
Education: It Takes a Community
This is the third in a series of four blogs that we will post during Connected Educator Month. In our first blog, titled "Education: Making the Connections," we introduced the concept of a triangle with the student at the center and with the family at the top and the school and the community at either tip. We see the tips of the triangle as the pivotal points at which we need to make the proper connections in order to improve the quality of education. In the second blog, we focused on … [Read more...]